Wimbledon Day 2

Okay, that's how we were expecting the first round at Wimbledon to go. The second day of action at SW19 proceeded in a fashion much more in tune with what one what expect. The top seeds breezed through, almost entirely untroubled. Nothing like that the top seeds had to struggle through on day one. The toughest match for one of the top players was JW Tsonga's victory over Robbie Kendrick, which took four sets and two tiebreaks. But Nadal, Murray, Soderling, and Ferrer all made it through in straight sets, all of which were pretty routine. The same could be said for the players on the women's side, with one exception.

The only upsets of note were the defeat of Juan Carlos Ferrero by Xavier Malisse, Nicolas Almagro's loss to Andreas Seppi, and Marcos Baghdatis's loss to Lukas Lacko. All three could have made deep runs here, but they weren't among the favorites. The biggest upset took place on the women's side, where French Open finalist Sam Stosur, who went down pretty tamely to Estonian Kaia Kanepi. I really though that Sam was poised for a deep run here, what with her excellent net-play. Oh well, maybe next year.

The other interesting match was James Blake's loss to Robin Haase. Despite the fact that it was only Blake's second match back after an extended injury layoff, Blake was extremely unhappy after the loss. He was clearly still troubled with some pain in his knee, and that left him antsy on court. His focus was all over the place, and his cause was not helped by being able to hear Pam Shriver announcing from the sidelines. That was quite an unusual confrontation, the way Blake yelled at her in between points. I really hope to see Blake come back and play close to the level he's capable of, but if he's not physically capable, then I don't want him to cause himself any more pain. Still, I do hope he makes a recovery. It's still too soon to make any definitive call about his future, especially considering his mumblings about retirement were made in the heat of the moment, after a frustrating loss.

Looking ahead to tomorrow, there are a handful of matches that promise to give us some of the excitement that today's action lacked. First of all, there are three matches entering their final set that are to be completed tomorrow after being suspended due to darkness. Thiemo De Bakker and Santiago Giraldo are just going to start the fifth set, while Daniela Hantuchova and Vania King are entering the third. But the tightest match has been between John Isner and Nicolas Mahut. Both are good on grass, and that should be an interesting fifth set.

In addition, Andy Roddick plays last week's Eastbourne titlist Michael Llodra, who is now being coached by Amelie Mauresmo. As an aside, that's the only instance I know of a male player having a female coach. The other titlist from last week, Sergiy Stakhovsky, was forced to retire down two sets to Sam Querrey, so it will be interesting to see how Llodra fares against last year's finalist. This is by no means a gimme for Roddick, as Llodra is a very talented grass-court player. It should be an interesting match.

Djokovic, who was very troubled by Olivier Rochus, could also have some problems with his next opponent, American serve-and-volleyer Taylor Dent. The American will have to play better than he did in his opening round, but if he can serve well and volley well, then Djokovic will also have to up the level of his game. Djoker might also prefer a big hitter from the service line and a target at night like Dent, as opposed to a speedy little slice-and-dicer like Rochus, so maybe he won't have as much trouble. We'll see what kind of form he's in.

I am also looking forward to Hewitt-Korolev, Berdych-Becker, Clement-Luczak, and Troicki-Melzer. One last match to watch is Kohlschreiber-Gabashvili, since the winner of that match might get Andy Roddick on Friday. Federer should have a much easier time tomorrow than he did on Monday - his opponent is a Serbian who has never even been ranked inside the top hundred. If Fed doesn't absolutely cruise through this match, then we'll know that he's really feeling off, and the rough fight with Alejandro Falla wasn't just a fluke. But based on that performance, it's tough to see Federer defending his title. I expect that the Fed we all remember will be back tomorrow.